Concept Art

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Rayman 3 (GameCube).

Concept art of Rayman 3 showcased by the game's art book and various artists who worked on the game.

Characters#

Rayman#

Rayman's design changed drastically from the previous game, making him look more detailed and more expressive than before. According to the game's lead character designer, Stéphane Zinetti, the development team were tasked of giving their own spin of the character for the third installement. As a result, Rayman's hair grew bigger and wider, his body was slightly modified and got a new pair of shoes.¹ Additionally, his personallity changed to be more mature and charismatic compared to the previous games.

Power-Ups#

Globox#

Teensies#

Hoodlums#

When the game's character designers began working on the enemies, their first sketches depicted them having a human appearance. The rest of the team was not convinced by the idea, as it didn't fit within the game's universe. Therefore, they abandoned this concept and went with enemies made of matter.

"We were looking for a fairly simple principle that would be easy to offer in a variety of forms for several characters, without repeating exactly the same thing.

The idea for the Hoodlums came from one of my sketches. It was a sort of Mexican holding a big rifle, wearing a large sombrero and a kind of poncho that covered his whole body. He was a blend of Mr. Dark from Rayman 1 – a mysterious character rolled up in his cloak, for those who don't know him – and the hunter, also from Rayman 1. From there was born the idea to make characters out of cloth. This was easy for the player to recognise, and very simple for us to adapt. What's more, graphically rendering the flexibility of different fabrics was an interesting challenge to take on.

Once we'd found the basic principle, we worked on the basic psychologies to create a whole heap of characters. For example, using a slightly mannered and mysterious profile, we created 'Hoodoo', an elongated sorcerer. For 'Slapdash', we wanted to create a fat moron. So we gave him a very clear strawberry color, a blank look and a rather heavy physique."

— Stéphane Zinetti, RaymanZone

At one point, the Hoodlums' design had a "Victorian Steampunk" style, as can be seen in some concept art below. The idea was ultimately abandoned, because it made them look too similar with the Robo-Pirates.

Begoniax#

Concept art of Begoniax, who was portrayed rather different early on. Her initial design, depicts her as a dark-skinned ork, wearing an orange dress with a bag wrapped around her and a crown. In another one, she is dressed with red robes, a bishop's hat and she holds a staff. The third design closely resembles her appearance in the final game, with the only major differences being her blue skin and the cracked cauldron on her head.

According to the book L'Histoire de Rayman, Bégoniax was inspired by Madam Mim from Disney's animated film, The Sword in the Stone, which is where her first design is heavily based of.²

Count Razoff#

Early artworks of Count Razoff depict him as some kind of slug creature. One of his designs shows Razoff in a spiked armor suit, that he could use to roll like a ball and crush Rayman. Another sketch, shows him riding a chameleon or a frog-looking creature, to presumably hunt down his prey. Over the course of the game's development, his appearance gradually changed to look more human.

Count Razoff was heavily inspired by General Zaroff from the 1924 short story, The Most Dangerous Game, and even sharing similar names.

Knaaren#

The Knaaren went through several iterations during early development. In some sketches, they are depicted as a race of primitive monsters, while other concepts portray them as a variety of different creatures such as mummies, birds and fairies.

Although the Knaaren don't wield any weapons in the final game, some aspects of their design carried over.

King Gumsi#

Reflux#

Other Creatures#

It appears there were multiple kinds of creatures that were planned to be included in the game, but instead got scrapped. Whether some of those would play a specific role or not is unknown. One plausible explanation is that the developers wanted to avoid adding too many animals, resulting in the game's levels being overcrowded. In addition, there were animals that apparently could be mounted by Rayman, like a camel, a two-legged tortoise and more.

Luckily, some creatures managed to make it into the final game, either as background characters or as easter eggs. The most notable of them are the red tropical birds, the Glute, the Uglies and the Squabs.

Environments#

The Fairy Council#

Clearleaf Forest#

Bog of Murk#

Land of the Livid Dead#

The Desert of the Knaaren#

Deadlands#

Lair of the Knaaren#

The Looming Sea#

Summit Beyond The Clouds#

Hoodlum Headquarters#

The Tower of Leptys#

Scrapped Locations#

References#